Begging for dollars

Last year about this time we had a little discussion about earthworms and the possible threat they make to forests.  Not much has been said since then so I figured it was another one-week wonder, a story with no legs; a moot point since worms don't have any legs.  But last week there was a worm story about another invasive species, and these worms are weird; they jump.  Although native to the South they have been moving North and can now be found in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan.  Just a heads-up for my fellow nature lovers.

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Last month I mentioned "clown car" in reference to all the Democratic candidates and I think Uncle Ken might have found my comment a bit harsh and perhaps it was.  But the clown car concept is gaining some traction according to a recent posting I saw.  The title of the article is "Democratic Presidential Clown Car Update for August 19, 2019" and you can read it here.  I just glanced at the article so I can't attest to the legitimacy of the site; maybe they're a bunch of loons but I thought the article title was funny and that's good enough for me.

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I know you guys don't spend as much time on YouTube as I do, but I noticed something interesting.  When I use my laptop I don't see any of the embedded ads because of the Ad-Blocker software I have installed.  It's different with my iPad though; the Apple ecosystem does not allow iPad ad blockers so all the videos I watch are usually interrupted by ads of one kind or another.  Annoying as hell, and political ads are becoming more frequent although they are very short as they solicit money. They're only asking for a dollar, which indicates to me that the number of individual donors is more important that the amount of money raised.  Off the top of my head I can only recall two candidates, Bernie Sanders and Tom Steyer, but I'm sure there have been others.  I am very quick on the trigger to skip the ads but I'll try to slow down and keep a better log of the folks soliciting support.

I remember reading about Obama's election victory and how he was the first guy to exploit social media like Facebook.  It worked pretty well but 2020 has a different spin on social media in that the candidates are hitting the video WebBlog sites with a vengeance.  It's a great format for the candidates because they can take their time and discuss the issues without being hammered by a hostile inquisitor; these are reasonable people involved in reasonable discussions.  Bernie spent more than an hour with Joe Rogan and it was amazing.  He was calm and used his "indoor voice" unlike other times I've seen him on TV.  Rogan leans right of center but I think Bernie impressed him.  I'll have to scour YouTube and see what other long form interviews are out there.  Candidates seldom get more than ten minutes or so to state their positions on issues so it's refreshing to hear them talk at length, often more than an hour.

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I don't recall anything about a hole in the space station...

It was last year about this time, a small hole in one of the Soyuz modules.  It wasn't caused by a meteorite or any other "act of God."  Somebody used a drill and there was a significant amount of finger pointing.  The module has since returned to Earth but there hasn't been a peep about it.  My guess is that one of the space guys went nuts and was duct-taped for his/her return trip home.  Space programs are tenuous and nobody needs such negative publicity.